The Movie "Air" Is Surprinsingly Really, Really Good. And Even More So, The Sonny Vaccaro Speech Really Happened In Real Life

After nothing but a preview blog from Kenjac back when this movie was announced and the trailer dropped-

Then nothing on this site after it premiered, yes, you’re now getting back-to-back blogs in consecutive days on it from Rear Ad and me.

Like RA wrote, when this movie was announced I was conflicted on half thinking, “wow what an odd premise for a movie”, and half “wow they are really running out of ideas in Hollywood.”

But after hearing from several people I know, including a few girls, tell me how much they enjoyed it, and how it was a really done film, I decided I’d hit the theatre and see it.

And see it I did. And you know what? Those people were right. For a movie essentially about Michael Jordan, that doesn’t include Michael Jordan, (or even show an actor playing him’s face), it was surprisingly really, really good.

Spoiler below, but aside from just crushing it directing, like he always does, Affleck also did an awesome job portraying a young, eccentric Phil Knight. Bateman killed as marketing executive Rob Strasser, per usual, because that’s what Bateman does. And Matt Damon, very pudgy and overweight in this might I add, also did a great job as the films star, Nike basketball college talent head, Sonny Vaccaro.

Before I get into the point of the blog, and spoiler, if you haven’t seen it yet, go see it. You can even stream it now- it’s on Amazon Prime now so watch it this weekend. It’s only like an hour and a half long, it’s quick and worth it I promise.

——— SPOILER ALERT———

After leaving the theatre, I was curious about two main things-

1- George Raveling’s role, which I’ll get to below.

And

2- was the speech Damon gave in the movie factual? Meaning, did Sonny Vaccaro seriously stop that train wreck video montage when he could sense how cringe it was making Mike and appeal to him and his parents in front of the entire room in real life? Or was that just “Hollywood”?

Just an AWESOME delivery for any Jordan fanatic to hear. Especially given the benefit of knowing how Jordan’s, and Nike’s future, unfolded after this, that’s to retrospect.

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Come to find out, it actually happened like that.

Footwear News- Matt Damon delivering the speech you made to the Jordan family in Beaverton, urging them to consider Nike, was captivating. How accurate was this scene?

“I swear to God, a guy who has known me for 25-30 years — who just left the theater with a couple of his employees — called me and he said, ‘That’s Sonny, he can make a speech.’ What everyone from Amazon is telling me is my speech was one of the most popular in the movie. There was two of them — Viola [Davis, who played Deloris Jordan] and mine. That actually happened. Everything I did, I had permission to do. I stopped the meeting to say all of those things.”

Pretty amazing when you think of it. 

Granted MJ was just a 21 year old kid at the time, not yet king of the world, but you know he still had that swagger. And his mother, by all accounts, was no joke. So Vaccaro having the balls to stop everything, and deliver that on the fly, in front of Phil Knight, and the guys in charge of marketing is really impressive.  

The ONLY problem, and it’s a slight problem, is MJ himself doesn’t credit that speech for sealing the deal for him with Nike. He gave an interview in 2015 to USA Today, and credit George Raveling for doing that-

USA Today- Michael Jordan’s version of him signing with Nike differs from everyone else at Nike.

“In all honesty, I never wore Nike shoes until I signed with Nike. I was a big Adidas, Converse guy coming out of college. Then actually, my parents made me go out to (Nike’s headquarters in Beaverton, Ore.) to hear their proposal.

“Prior to all of that, Sonny (Vaccaro) likes to take the credit. But it really wasn’t Sonny, it was actually George Raveling. George Raveling was with me on the 1984 Olympics team (as an assistant coach under Bob Knight). He used to always try to talk to me, ‘You gotta go Nike, you gotta go Nike. You’ve got to try.’”

Jordan later shared how it was Rob Strasser and the way he presented Air Jordan is where they hooked him. He did give Sonny the credit for scouting him, but then clarified it was George Raveling who got him into Nike’s door, and Rob Strasser who kept him there.

When George Raveling met Michael Jordan, he was an assistant coach for Team USA, but also the Head Coach at University of Iowa, which was endorsed by Nike. He shared how he developed a special bond with Mike at the Team USA practices. They formed a small group, himself, MJ, Patrick Ewing, and Vern Fleming. Talking about Nike, he shared how Sonny Vaccaro was after him to get MJ in a room with him.

“We had a long training camp. … And so I had a lot of time to spend with Michael and I was trying to recruit him to come to Nike. In the interest of accuracy, Sonny had asked me to try to get a meeting set up between him and Michael.”

The meeting with Sonny didn’t go as well as it could have. However, George says he told Nike to keep pursuing MJ. He credited their ability to get MJ to the campus for a meeting, along with his parents.

So revisionist history definitely muddied the waters on the true story. Especially y when you factor in the fact Nike fired Vaccaro’s ass back in 1990, then had the FBI investigate him for “corporate espionage”. (He wasn’t found guilty or tried for any crime)

But that hasn’t stopped Vaccaro from roasting his former employers, or Jordan himself, calling them all liars.

Phil Knight’s lying, Michael’s lying more than Phil and Raveling is insane. All three of them need to destroy me to live happily ever after.”

“Everyone’s trying to rewrite history. It goes beyond Jordan. I am the savior of Nike.’’

Knight and Nike hired Vaccaro in 1977, to help lead the brand into college basketball. Which Vaccaro did, and did well, getting 80 coaches to make their athletes wear Nike. In 1984, the brand was about to sign Charles Barkley, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Patrick Ewing, but as the movie shows, Sonny urged Knight, and Strasser, to put all of its allotted budget for the athletes into Michael Jordan alone.

“They wanted my opinion and I won the meeting. It’s illogical to think it was anything other than all me.”“Nobody else (at Nike) really wanted (Jordan), and they didn’t know he was going (to the NBA after his junior season at North Carolina.) I just had a hunch. I can’t even explain why he was the hunch.’’

Sonny also brought up the same resentment in a recent interview he did about the movie-

As they say, there’s always three-sides to every story. Yours, theirs, and the truth. So who knows?

None of this takes away from the movie being great.

P.s.- Affleck decided to throw a great nugget about Raveling (played by Marlon Wayans) into the movie which I loved. Raveling is a history nut, and some of his most prized possessions are seriously incredible. Talking Smithsonian museum level pieces. One of my favorite podcasts to listen to, Tim Ferris, had Raveling on as a guest once and got him talking about some of the pieces he has and the backstories behind how he came into possession of them. 

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The big one they throw into “Air”, is Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” written speech, which Raveling owns thanks to Raveling being a security guard on The Mall steps, and King handing it to him after stepping down from the podium that afternoon in Washington D.C.

“At the end of the speech, as Dr. King finished and started to fold his speech, as he walked away, I just said — I don’t know why, just impulsively said: ‘Dr. King, can I have that copy?’ And he turned and handed it to me.”

Why did he ask for it?

“I would love to come up with some really exotic answer. People ask me time and time again. It was just impulse,” Raveling said. “I have no idea why I did it.”